Langley on 2 wheels to meet 2 hot chicks !

Sexist undertones in this Blog?  What is going on?  Forgive me, but a title like 'dinner with two wonderful women' would have just sounded too reserved. Credit where credit is due! 

I'm meeting Tanya and Zulema in Langley for Dinner.  They are the two wonderful women (and hot chicks ! ;-) whose wit and wisdom made my recent holiday in Puerto Vallarta so much nicer.  Both are really busy in their professional and private obligations in Coquitlam and 100 Mile House, so to be able to meet both of them on the same evening is a lucky chance that I must not miss!

How to get from top left to bottom right?

Even last year, my preferred method of getting to Langley would have been driving an automobile. But even since last year, the number of cars on Vancouver roads and consequently the ugliness of its traffic problem have increased, so it's time to put my money where my mouth is, namely in public transit and cycling.

A short ride to Waterfront Station in Downtown Vancouver

Somewhere in Stanley Park I realize that I have forgotten my camera in the hotel but decide not to go back for it.  Vancouver's sky is the usual pollution-white-washed haze, which is not conducive to nice pictures anyway (You know the pictures where the sky is simply white). I board the Skytrain at Burrard Station (probably the SLOWEST elevator in the mapped world).

Only a 1 zone short ride to Commercial Drive 

Since I haven't had breakfast yet, I only take the skytrain to Commercial Drive, where I will eat something at Zawa's, one of the few civilized establishment that serves wine with greasy food starting at 9 am ;-).  It is Friday, so Fish & Chips is the natural selection. I don't know precisely where the Eat Fish on Friday tradition comes from. I'm pretty sure it was initiated by the Catholic church on reason that Jesus died on a Friday, so one shouldn't eat meat on a Friday. But since there were indubitably some very bright people among church-folk, it is quite possible that some of them realized that fish is part of a healthy diet (all those Omega 3s) or that some of them owed favours to fishermen.  In the middle ages, apparently some gout-prone rich people herded deer or elk into rivers to kill them there. Because what comes out of a river must be fish, eh?

Not the Zawa fish, but without veggies as well.

Anywho, Fish & Chips is not bad at Zawa's but that's all you get.  The Cole Slaw that traditionally accompanies the dish is prominently absent.  But enough of this Late Roman Decadence whining; when one is really HUNGRY, it doesn't matter what the food consists of as long as it's food.  Here is an exercise for you:  When was the last time you were really HUNGRY? And I don't mean that you THOUGHT that you were hungry but in reality had last eaten only an hour earlier.  Can people in the first world even still tell when they are hungry and not just bored?  Now consider, that 805 Million people in this world today don't even have to think, because they are HUNGRY all the time.  

Hop on the Skytrain again and travel to the end of the line 

I get off at the end of the line, King George Station. 20 km to cycle from here.  I had expected a kind of leisurely ride through the country, but that is not what is in store for me.  

A bike lane (!) right next to HEAVY traffic, malls full of chain stores, car dealerships, tire stores, etc etc, you get the idea.  20 kms later I find the Travelodge Langley City, which makes a great impression from the outside.  However, I have to show my reservation to the reception staff on my laptop before she decides to contact Bookings.com to verify my claim that I have a room here tonight. Checking out my room confirms my good impression of the hotel. Then I decide to cycle around the block (4 kms !) but it's all the same, country roads that might be lovely if there wasn't that much traffic on them. On the way back to the hotel, I acquire a bottle of wine, which is half empty by the time there is the first knock on my door.  Zu arrives first, and when Tanya arrives a short while later, I mock-shout out of my door "I have TWO chicks in my room! ".  They both know me well enough so that this only causes more hilarity instead of embarrassment. 
The first Sushi place we arrive at asks us whether we have reservations.  Nope.  The allotted possible dining time of 1 hour seems too short, but Tanya spies another Sushi place across the street, so we go there (no limit on our dining time here ;-).  Because I am in the role of the semi-inebriated passenger in Tanya's car, I have no idea where we actually are and consequently would not ever find it again either, which is too bad, since the food is good here. By the time we walk through Willowbrook mall on the hunt for a Baskin Robbins, it is POURING outside and I am thinking about the 20 kms I have to cycle tomorrow.  We finally find the ice-cream place (it's actually NOT inside the mall) and even though I had been hoping for an old-fashioned Dairy Queen's Cherry Sundae (In 1980, these were divine, with vast quantities of REAL cherries), the Chocolate Overload hits the spot. Drinks are out of the question since the ladies still have to drive, so it's time to say Good Bye after that. 

I sleep well even though the hotel is right next to Fraser Highway.

At 9 am the next morning, the route to King George Station in Surrey is still as ugly, noisy and stinky from cars as yesterday, so I take a detour along 80th and 100th Avenues, which makes the trip a bit more pleasant.  Thanks to Google Maps on my phone, I find King George Station again and ride the SkyTrain to Patterson Station, to visit Chantal & Mika.

My battery has been charging while at Chantal's place and the weather is pleasant, so I refrain from re-boarding SkyTrain, but cycle the 20 kms back to North Vancouver.

The home stretch

Moral of the story?  I really don't need a car in this city when it's not raining.  Even Abbotsford which sounds far away when one has to drive a car there, is only 40 kms from King George Station, which translates to only 2 hours cycling.  And the new pair of shorts that I just bought at Superstore are a size 34 again ;-)